When I initially started this blog, I hoped to post regularly and frequently, but judging by the fact that my last post was in March, I guess you could say I didn't quite hit my goal. While this past semester, or year actually, felt agonizingly long at times, it also was a huge whirlwind. My classes this year were tough for me, and I ended up working in a wonderful internship, although at times I worked more hours than I probably should have for my GPA's sake. I apologize to everyone for being hard to contact and being out of touch. In addition to my lack of time, my dorm room had horrid cell phone reception, but I digress. I am sorry for being a bad friend, sister, daughter, ect. However, now that things have finally calmed down, I'd like to take a minute and thank everyone who has supported my throughout my life. Most of my life the things I have done have been in preparation of going to college, and then once in college they have been done in an effort to find the ever elusive "good job". I can't even begin to name all the people who have supported me and influenced my life, but if you are reading this, you are one of them. There is a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that says, "In my walks, every man I meet is superior in some way, and in that I learn from him." I fully believe this has been true in my life, and I am so grateful for all of you and the things you have taught me. I know I wouldn't be the person I am today without everything I've learned from each person who has touched my life.With that said, I have some updates to throw out there in case we haven't talked recently, or you aren't in touch with my mother (I know she spreads news). This past couple weeks has been a huge transition time for me, and still will be for a couple more weeks. First, I bought my first car from Kassie's (my roommate) dad. 2005 red pontiac vibe. I love it. Still needs a name though. Then, I made it through finals and they let me graduate. Nail biter. I also moved into my first townhome with some good friends, and will be moving to a new unit in the same complex at the end of July with a different group of friends. Finally, I officially accepted a full time job offer at Concordia as an undergraduate admission counselor. I love my co-workers, and I'll be working with the same group that I've been working with for the past year, so I'm very excited. I'll get to do a little bit of travel for this job, and meet many wonderful students and families, so I absolutely cannot wait. My training begins on June 2nd, and will go for 3 weeks, at which point I'll head back to Portland for about a week or so. Then I'll come back here and hit the ground running just in time for busy season.
This past weekend, graduation weekend, my family came out to see me. It was absolutely the most wonderful thing to see them, and show them where I live and work, and just what goes on out here. (John and Steve hate the roads and construction from what I gathered), but we all had a great time. We explored Port Washington, our hotel had a great view of Lake Michigan out the window, and we went on a few adventures. It was absolutely amazing. On Sunday, we had made a last minute decision to head down to Chicago and go to the Cubs-Brewers game so Dad could check out Wrigley Field. He loved it. We also explored Chicago a little bit and tried out some Chicago style pizza. Chicago is unreal, by the way. I will for sure be returning to Chicago to just check it out and explore. Also, the Sauer family and I toured Sprecher brewery, hit up the Jelly Belly factory, and investigated the Mars Cheese Castle. These were all wonderful adventures, not to mention the invaluable family time I got to spend with each of them. We did miss our missing family members, Malia, Chris, Tristan, Teddy, and Chelsea, of course. Speaking of which, today is Malia's birthday, so special shout out to that wonderful lady. Can't wait to see her and her family in a month! Anyway, just thought I'd throw out some updates and thank yous to everyone. Let me know if you'll be around Portland June 21-29th and would like to hang out. Just shoot me a text, I'm hoping to see lots of people then. Love you all, and hope all is well!
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Blessings, not Burdens
Happy Mardi Gras, everyone! I hope everyone celebrated, and enjoyed themselves. I think one item on my bucket list is going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, just to experience the festivities in full swing. And I just got Kassie to agree to come with me, at an undetermined future date. I think maybe she's gotten to a point where she just agrees with me sometimes so I'll stop talking hahaha. I guess that's what happens when you live with someone for two and a half years. But anyway, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which kicks off Lent. This has been a recent topic of discussion in our room in the past week or so about what we're giving up for Lent. Kassie is going with chocolate, and Jacqueline is going with bread. Both pretty hard ones. Props to them. I decided, however, I'm not going to give up an item, but rather, give up/change a behavior. I was told once, not sure on the accuracy, that people used to use Lent as a time to change bad behaviors to make themselves better to prepare their heart for Easter. Well, whether that is true or not, I'm going to go that route. So, if you're reading this and are someone who sees me frequently, or talks to me, go ahead and hold me to this one. I decided to talk about blessings more than burdens. I have to admit, this was a pinterest inspired idea, but I think it will be good. It's always good to recognize the good in life, and I think it will help me be more grateful. So I think maybe I'll try to post each week about things I'm grateful for in that week. Today I complained a lot about nothing important so hopefully everything is out of my system, and now I can focus on the good. The best part of my day today was that I got to talk to one of my favorite people in the entire world, Chrissy. Unfortunately, we only got to talk briefly because my phone kept dropping the call and I was at work and she was on her way to class, but it was so good to hear from her. I wish we had more time to talk, but I love the time I do get to talk with her. So that definitely made my day to hear from her. I am also thankful for the opportunities I have here at Concordia, and am so grateful to be able to work with the people I work with. Anyway, I have been procrastinating a bit tonight, so I should get it together and do some work. Also, last quick note.According to the weather report, we're getting a heat wave. Up into the 40s this weekend and next week. Sooo awesome. I'm thankful for that too. Maybe I'll walk outside to class. We'll see how the wind is. I hope all is well with all of you.
Best Wishes,
~Michaela
Best Wishes,
~Michaela
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Just another day in paradise
Well, it's been a couple weeks since I went home, and while I was there I seemed to have taken some Wisconsin weather with me, and upon my return, I seem to have brought a little bit of Portland weather here. In the last week, there's been a small heat wave, getting up into the 30s, and if I remember correctly, I think we even had some rain instead of snow. Also, the snow around campus has been melting. It might not sound like much, but for someone who's not used to having feet of snow on the ground for 5 months out of the year, it's nice to see the grass again. Unfortunately it's supposed to get cold again this week, so we'll see how that goes.
The weekend I went home, I spent a good amount of time in the airports and on planes, giving me ample time to contemplate life, before jumping back into school. When I was home, there was so much talk about Grandpa, and just his way of life. I really am so grateful for him, and for my whole family. It's funny how much grandparents shape you without you even realizing it. When Aunt Teri gave his Eulogy she told so many stories I didn't know about him, but that are very telling of where my Dad came from, and that have been passed down to me. One of his big philosophies was, "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right." I never knew that came from Grandpa, but I have heard those words come out of Dad's mouth so many times. Grandpa was also a big believer in finding the positives in life, and finding a funny side to all situations. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at that too, but maybe not quite as good as Grandpa. One of the stories Aunt Teri told was about his later years of golf. Grandpa had macular degeneration, so his eyesight had gotten pretty bad, which in golf, is a bit of an issue. When it got to a point where he couldn't see where the ball had gone, he just shrugged it off, saying, "I've always wanted to be able to hit the ball out of sight. Now I can!" Grandpa was the ever-optimist. I'm so glad that I had that type of influence in my life growing up. As Aunt Teri told story after story about Grandpa, it all started to sound very familiar, like my own Dad. Grandpa's dad died when Grandpa was very young, so he never really had anyone to show him how to be a good dad, but he really figured it out. However, I know I got lucky because my dad had a wonderful example and teacher, which Dad became himself. Aunt Teri talked about how Grandpa would always be teaching them things, and going out to play catch after going to work all day. When she talked about all these things, my childhood flooded my memory. I remembered Dad playing basketball with John and me, in the dark in the driveway, having me dribble around a pop can obstacle course, while he set up trash cans to act as defenders for John. Dad also coached every single one of us in basketball for at least a couple years, not to mention he was at pretty much everything we participated in. I especially have to give him props for coming to all of my music concerts and recitals because those were incredibly boring, and he hates sitting still for long periods of time. (Mom also deserves the same props for going to all of our games, because she was not a huge sports fan, but was there every season.) Finally, in hearing everything about Grandpa, and knowing how my dad is, I finally figured out where my wanderlust came from. Grandpa seemed to always be open to new places, hitchhiking here from Minnesota, moving to the coast for a few years, and moving around in Portland a bit. Also, I spent a good amount of time with his sister, Betty, while I was home, and she told me all about her world travels. It's in my blood. So I guess that's what brought me 2000 miles from home, to the arctic tundra we call Wisconsin. An itch to go somewhere new, with new possibilities.
In other news, there's not a whole lot of excitement for me at the moment. School is going well, definitely better than last semester, but still very busy and hectic. I had a physics test last Friday, which I think went alright, but I'll be finding out about that tomorrow. Next week I'll have four exams and a quiz, plus my senior seminar project due, so that will be craziness, but hopefully I'll have some time this week to start preparing. Work is about the same too. I'm interning in the admissions office still, which is wonderful. I work with absolutely the best people, and have a great support system there. Coaching is also going pretty well. We had a tournament this weekend and got 2nd place, and the girls are really improving significantly. Finally, the countdown to Spring Break has officially begun. 20 days of class left. Then after break, there's 3 weeks until Easter break, then 3 more weeks of class. Then finals. And graduation. That's coming up quick. I did apply for graduation last week, which is weird to think about. I could potentially be done with school forever in about 12 weeks. So scary and exciting! Anyway, I'll post a few pictures from the past couple weeks to add some visuals to this post, which got much longer than I anticipated.
Here are a couple taken from the plane as we were landing in Milwaukee. The first one is Lake Michigan, and it is partially frozen, and the second one is the shoreline of Milwaukee with Lake Michigan.
These two are of my room upon arrival back at school from being home. Our office likes to pull pranks on each other and originally I helped blow up all these balloons to fill one of the counselor's offices while he was out, but then they turned the prank around on me while I was gone, and moved all the balloons to my dorm room. There were 513 balloons.
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And this is just a picture from this weekend (I apologize for the blurriness) with two of my best friends, so you can put a face to a name. Rachel is the one in the middle, we coach basketball together, and Kassie is on the right, she's my roommate. If I find a job in this area, I'll be living with these two next year.
I love and miss you all!
The weekend I went home, I spent a good amount of time in the airports and on planes, giving me ample time to contemplate life, before jumping back into school. When I was home, there was so much talk about Grandpa, and just his way of life. I really am so grateful for him, and for my whole family. It's funny how much grandparents shape you without you even realizing it. When Aunt Teri gave his Eulogy she told so many stories I didn't know about him, but that are very telling of where my Dad came from, and that have been passed down to me. One of his big philosophies was, "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right." I never knew that came from Grandpa, but I have heard those words come out of Dad's mouth so many times. Grandpa was also a big believer in finding the positives in life, and finding a funny side to all situations. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at that too, but maybe not quite as good as Grandpa. One of the stories Aunt Teri told was about his later years of golf. Grandpa had macular degeneration, so his eyesight had gotten pretty bad, which in golf, is a bit of an issue. When it got to a point where he couldn't see where the ball had gone, he just shrugged it off, saying, "I've always wanted to be able to hit the ball out of sight. Now I can!" Grandpa was the ever-optimist. I'm so glad that I had that type of influence in my life growing up. As Aunt Teri told story after story about Grandpa, it all started to sound very familiar, like my own Dad. Grandpa's dad died when Grandpa was very young, so he never really had anyone to show him how to be a good dad, but he really figured it out. However, I know I got lucky because my dad had a wonderful example and teacher, which Dad became himself. Aunt Teri talked about how Grandpa would always be teaching them things, and going out to play catch after going to work all day. When she talked about all these things, my childhood flooded my memory. I remembered Dad playing basketball with John and me, in the dark in the driveway, having me dribble around a pop can obstacle course, while he set up trash cans to act as defenders for John. Dad also coached every single one of us in basketball for at least a couple years, not to mention he was at pretty much everything we participated in. I especially have to give him props for coming to all of my music concerts and recitals because those were incredibly boring, and he hates sitting still for long periods of time. (Mom also deserves the same props for going to all of our games, because she was not a huge sports fan, but was there every season.) Finally, in hearing everything about Grandpa, and knowing how my dad is, I finally figured out where my wanderlust came from. Grandpa seemed to always be open to new places, hitchhiking here from Minnesota, moving to the coast for a few years, and moving around in Portland a bit. Also, I spent a good amount of time with his sister, Betty, while I was home, and she told me all about her world travels. It's in my blood. So I guess that's what brought me 2000 miles from home, to the arctic tundra we call Wisconsin. An itch to go somewhere new, with new possibilities.
In other news, there's not a whole lot of excitement for me at the moment. School is going well, definitely better than last semester, but still very busy and hectic. I had a physics test last Friday, which I think went alright, but I'll be finding out about that tomorrow. Next week I'll have four exams and a quiz, plus my senior seminar project due, so that will be craziness, but hopefully I'll have some time this week to start preparing. Work is about the same too. I'm interning in the admissions office still, which is wonderful. I work with absolutely the best people, and have a great support system there. Coaching is also going pretty well. We had a tournament this weekend and got 2nd place, and the girls are really improving significantly. Finally, the countdown to Spring Break has officially begun. 20 days of class left. Then after break, there's 3 weeks until Easter break, then 3 more weeks of class. Then finals. And graduation. That's coming up quick. I did apply for graduation last week, which is weird to think about. I could potentially be done with school forever in about 12 weeks. So scary and exciting! Anyway, I'll post a few pictures from the past couple weeks to add some visuals to this post, which got much longer than I anticipated.
Here are a couple taken from the plane as we were landing in Milwaukee. The first one is Lake Michigan, and it is partially frozen, and the second one is the shoreline of Milwaukee with Lake Michigan.
These two are of my room upon arrival back at school from being home. Our office likes to pull pranks on each other and originally I helped blow up all these balloons to fill one of the counselor's offices while he was out, but then they turned the prank around on me while I was gone, and moved all the balloons to my dorm room. There were 513 balloons.
And this is just a picture from this weekend (I apologize for the blurriness) with two of my best friends, so you can put a face to a name. Rachel is the one in the middle, we coach basketball together, and Kassie is on the right, she's my roommate. If I find a job in this area, I'll be living with these two next year.
I love and miss you all!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Starting off the year...a bit late
I guess I'm starting this blog to keep people posted, mostly from back home, about what's going on in my life because there's a lot going on, and I feel like I've been very bad about keeping in touch last semester. In addition, being a science major has significantly crushed my use of my creativity, so I'm hoping to boost that as well So I guess here goes nothing...
Happy New Year! Well, I guess this is bit late for that, but this week started off the new semester, and was full of unexpected events in these short three days. Tuesday classes were cancelled due to severe cold weather. Yes. That's a real thing. And I moved 2000 miles from home to live in a place where that actually happens. Why? No one knows. I guess it was the adventure available to me at the time. Which honestly turned out to be a wonderful decision for many reasons, but I'll save that for another day. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, I also found out my Grandpa had passed away. While it is a sad and hard time, it was reassuring to see him while I was home on break, knowing that he wasn't in much pain, and was spending time with his kids and grandkids. It's incredible to imagine the wonderful family he and my grandma created. Their house was always a place I loved to visit. The warmth and love that came from their house was amazing, and I'm so thankful for all the lessons I learned not only from my grandparents, but those lessons learned from my dad and his siblings. My grandpa grew up in a tiny town in Minnesota, with several siblings (6 I think, but I could be wrong). When he was 14, he and his friend Shaq saved up money from their paper route, $26, and decided it was time to move out to Oregon. This was during the Depression, and they both were looking for work. If I remember correctly, they each had a small sack of their belongings, the clothes on their backs, and $26. It wasn't much, but they were determined to move out West. They hitch-hiked their way across those 1600 miles. At one point, they couldn't hitch a ride with a driver, so they talked to a local in one of the towns about the train that ran through the town. They were informed that in the middle of the night, a train would come and hook up to one of the boxcars on the track, and head out West with it. Logically, they hoped in that boxcar and waited for the train to come, and take them out West. Easy enough. They sat in the boxcar, waiting for hours, until finally, they heard the train coming. As their excitement built, they heard the train come to a rough stop, crashing and wobbling their boxcar. This was it. Their easy ticket out West. As they heard the train starting up again, and getting ready to leave, they couldn't wait to be on their way. Then they heard the sounds of the train start to get quieter. And quieter. Until there was almost no sound at all. Bewildered, Shaq stuck his out of the boxcar, and off in the distance, the train was heading out West without them. Frustrated, they had to wait and hitch a ride with another gentleman, who took them the majority of the trip. Once they got to Portland, Shaq went to work in the shipyards, but grandpa wasn't old enough so he moved out towards the Newberg area and worked in a rural area for six months before he went to work in the shipyards. He eventually met grandma in Portland, where they were married and had 6 kids. Grandpa owned several stores and a hotel in Seaside. Grandpa was a lover of sports. Any sport. All sports. He was a golfer and unreal card-player (I couldn't tell you how much money I lost to him playing cards). He was a patient teacher, always telling me how to improve my card-game, but never going easy on me. He also made amazing oatmeal cookies. That always seemed like a random hidden talent of his, to me. But he also was one of my number one sports fans growing up. Although he didn't make it to every game, I remember always being so excited about the games he came to. Whether it was basketball or volleyball, it didn't matter. I loved how excited he seemed to get about even my CYO games. I will never forget the times when he and my dad's sister Teri drove all the way to Eugene to see me play at state for volleyball. Grandpa also used to have the best looking lawn in the entire state. It was incredible. Grandpa always seemed to have a sense of humor about everything too. I can't remember a time I visited him where we didn't joke about something. Even during the last few weeks I saw him, we always had a couple laughs. He will be greatly missed, but I know that he taught me about life, and those things will be with me forever.
It's funny living in Wisconsin though, because I've realized in living here, that some of the things my family said or did that people thought were different or weird growing up, are pretty much all Midwest things. I constantly find myself realizing I've got more Midwest in me than I realized. It's a pretty cool feeling though, like I'm finding my roots. In seeing Grandpa while I was home, I realized that it really is possible to live a life so that when you get to the end, you can see all the beauty and good that came from your life, and be content with the life you led. In talking with Grandpa, it seemed like he really was happy with how his life had gone, and I'm thankful that we all were able to spend time with him. I can only hope we all live our lives in a way that we are happy with them by the end.
I'm so thankful for the family I've been given, and although the circumstances won't be great, I am glad I'm getting the chance to be home for the funeral, and spend time with everyone.
I guess this post was less about keeping people posted, but more to come in upcoming weeks. Until then, friends, stay classy.
Lefse master, Grandpa Tony
Happy New Year! Well, I guess this is bit late for that, but this week started off the new semester, and was full of unexpected events in these short three days. Tuesday classes were cancelled due to severe cold weather. Yes. That's a real thing. And I moved 2000 miles from home to live in a place where that actually happens. Why? No one knows. I guess it was the adventure available to me at the time. Which honestly turned out to be a wonderful decision for many reasons, but I'll save that for another day. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, I also found out my Grandpa had passed away. While it is a sad and hard time, it was reassuring to see him while I was home on break, knowing that he wasn't in much pain, and was spending time with his kids and grandkids. It's incredible to imagine the wonderful family he and my grandma created. Their house was always a place I loved to visit. The warmth and love that came from their house was amazing, and I'm so thankful for all the lessons I learned not only from my grandparents, but those lessons learned from my dad and his siblings. My grandpa grew up in a tiny town in Minnesota, with several siblings (6 I think, but I could be wrong). When he was 14, he and his friend Shaq saved up money from their paper route, $26, and decided it was time to move out to Oregon. This was during the Depression, and they both were looking for work. If I remember correctly, they each had a small sack of their belongings, the clothes on their backs, and $26. It wasn't much, but they were determined to move out West. They hitch-hiked their way across those 1600 miles. At one point, they couldn't hitch a ride with a driver, so they talked to a local in one of the towns about the train that ran through the town. They were informed that in the middle of the night, a train would come and hook up to one of the boxcars on the track, and head out West with it. Logically, they hoped in that boxcar and waited for the train to come, and take them out West. Easy enough. They sat in the boxcar, waiting for hours, until finally, they heard the train coming. As their excitement built, they heard the train come to a rough stop, crashing and wobbling their boxcar. This was it. Their easy ticket out West. As they heard the train starting up again, and getting ready to leave, they couldn't wait to be on their way. Then they heard the sounds of the train start to get quieter. And quieter. Until there was almost no sound at all. Bewildered, Shaq stuck his out of the boxcar, and off in the distance, the train was heading out West without them. Frustrated, they had to wait and hitch a ride with another gentleman, who took them the majority of the trip. Once they got to Portland, Shaq went to work in the shipyards, but grandpa wasn't old enough so he moved out towards the Newberg area and worked in a rural area for six months before he went to work in the shipyards. He eventually met grandma in Portland, where they were married and had 6 kids. Grandpa owned several stores and a hotel in Seaside. Grandpa was a lover of sports. Any sport. All sports. He was a golfer and unreal card-player (I couldn't tell you how much money I lost to him playing cards). He was a patient teacher, always telling me how to improve my card-game, but never going easy on me. He also made amazing oatmeal cookies. That always seemed like a random hidden talent of his, to me. But he also was one of my number one sports fans growing up. Although he didn't make it to every game, I remember always being so excited about the games he came to. Whether it was basketball or volleyball, it didn't matter. I loved how excited he seemed to get about even my CYO games. I will never forget the times when he and my dad's sister Teri drove all the way to Eugene to see me play at state for volleyball. Grandpa also used to have the best looking lawn in the entire state. It was incredible. Grandpa always seemed to have a sense of humor about everything too. I can't remember a time I visited him where we didn't joke about something. Even during the last few weeks I saw him, we always had a couple laughs. He will be greatly missed, but I know that he taught me about life, and those things will be with me forever.
It's funny living in Wisconsin though, because I've realized in living here, that some of the things my family said or did that people thought were different or weird growing up, are pretty much all Midwest things. I constantly find myself realizing I've got more Midwest in me than I realized. It's a pretty cool feeling though, like I'm finding my roots. In seeing Grandpa while I was home, I realized that it really is possible to live a life so that when you get to the end, you can see all the beauty and good that came from your life, and be content with the life you led. In talking with Grandpa, it seemed like he really was happy with how his life had gone, and I'm thankful that we all were able to spend time with him. I can only hope we all live our lives in a way that we are happy with them by the end.
I'm so thankful for the family I've been given, and although the circumstances won't be great, I am glad I'm getting the chance to be home for the funeral, and spend time with everyone.
I guess this post was less about keeping people posted, but more to come in upcoming weeks. Until then, friends, stay classy.
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